Supreme Court
In re E. Tex. Med. Ctr. Athens
- Case number: 23-1039
- Legal category: Procedure-Pretrial
- Subtype: Responsible Third-Party Designation
- Set for oral argument: February 18, 2025
Case Summary
At issue is whether a negligence claim against a nonsubscribing employer is an action to collect workers’ compensation benefits excluded from the scope of the proportionate-liability statute.
Sharon Dunn, an ER nurse employed by East Texas Medical Center Athens was injured when an EMT pushed a stretcher into her back. She initially sued the EMT and his employer, but those claims were dismissed because she failed to file expert reports by the statutory deadline as required under the Texas Medical Liability Act. While those claims were still pending, Dunn amended her petition to include a negligence claim against ETMC Athens, a nonsubscriber to workers’ compensation. After the original defendants were dismissed, ETMC Athens filed a motion for leave to designate them as responsible third parties. Dunn did not object to the motion, and the trial court granted leave. Eleven months later, Dunn moved to strike the designation, arguing that ETMC Athens is foreclosed from designating RTPs because the proportionate-responsibility statute, found in Chapter 33 of the Texas Civil Practices and Remedies Code, is inapplicable. Specifically, she argued that her negligence claim against ETMC Athens is “an action to collect workers’ compensation benefits under the workers’ compensation laws of this state,” to which Chapter 33 does not apply.
The trial court granted Dunn’s motion to strike. The court of appeals denied ETMC Athens’s petition for writ of mandamus, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in striking the RTPs because a negligence action against a nonsubscriber employer is an action to collect workers’ compensation benefits under the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act.
ETMC Athens filed a petition for writ of mandamus in the Supreme Court, arguing that the trial court clearly abused its discretion in striking the RTPs on nonevidentiary sufficiency grounds and that it lacks an adequate remedy on appeal. ETMC Athens argues that Dunn waived her nonevidentiary arguments by failing to timely raise them and that ETMC Athens is entitled to designate RTPs because Dunn’s suit is a common-law negligence suit, not an action to collect workers’ compensation benefits excluded from the scope of Chapter 33. The Supreme Court granted argument on the petition for writ of mandamus.
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